Water Rails & Oil - Historic Mid & South Jefferson County

CHAPTER IV
D EPRESSION, WAR & SOCIAL C HANGE
Residents of southern Jefferson County entered the 1930s, and the Great Depression, better
prepared than a great many other Texans and Americans. The loss of international markets after
World War I produced an agricultural slump in the South, especially in cotton production, but
Jefferson County did not depend on cotton, as did many other counties in East and South Texas.
Also, discoveries in the oil industry, first at Spindletop, then elsewhere in the county and state, the
spectacular EasTex field near Kilgore, and resulting construction and operation of pipelines and
refineries, produced a recurring boom in the county.
Years later, many people chuckled, “We never knew when the Depression started,” meaning that
the crash on Wall Street in October 1929 had no immediate effect on them because they owned no
stocks or bonds or they enjoyed steady work in the oil fields and refineries. Belts had to be tightened,
of course—for a time the cities paid employees in scrip rather than their regular checks—but
Jefferson County got through the Depression with less stress than many other parts of the nation, and
the population even increased, because many East Texans and southwest Louisianans moved to the
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Texaco Island. Located at the junction
of the Sabine-Neches Canal and the
Port Arthur canal, September 9,
1953. The grain elevator built by
Arthur Stilwell in 1897 is in the lower
center of the image. The Kansas City
Southern Railway yards are next to
grain elevator.
COURTESY OF THE PORT ARTHUR PUBLIC LIBRARY,
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
Chapter IV ✦ 33